General Electric Company

Martin Marietta Corporation

Stephen J Bullis

Peter C Wolff

Thomas W Cozzy

Larry W Hayes

Douglas P Tassie

Steven R Duke

Raymond A Patenaude

Glenn E Rossier

David P Perrin

An ammunition indexing mechanism for moving, responsive to actuation of a trigger mechanism, a cartridge from a selected one of a pair of opposed feedports in a weapon receiver and into alignment with a firing chamber of a barrel assembly of the weapon, has a rotary mechanism for moving through a selected index angle each ammunition cartridge entering through the selected feedport; and a torque assembly for storing energy, responsive to a selected movement of the barrel assembly, until released to operate the rotary mechanism to move, for each selected barrel assembly movement, each sequential cartridge through similar angular displacement to a position aligned with the firing chamber.

Ammunition indexing mechanism

A novel mechanism for moving a gun bolt toward and away from a firing chamber of a barrel assembly having movement relative to a receiver in a cartridge-firing weapon, having a camming channel formed in the receiver of the weapon, uses a rack member having an end coupled to the gun bolt and moving substantially linearly with the gun bolt toward and away from the chamber. A gear train has a housing affixed to the moving barrel assembly; an input member moves in the camming channel responsive to barrel assembly movement, to cause an output member to move the rack member and attached gun bolt toward and away from the chamber with substantially-linear displacement, velocity and acceleration greater than the associated displacement, velocity and acceleration of the moving barrel assembly with respect to the weapon receiver.

Gun bolt accelerator mechanism

A multi-layer composite gun barrel has an integral metal alloy jacket portion, forming the exterior cylinder of the entire barrel, with a forebarrel interior liner cylinder substantially bonded within the jacket portion, and an unbonded breech portion liner, made from a high melting temperature refractory metal alloy able to resist erosion by hot gun gases in the barrel breech area.

Multi-layer composite gun barrel

In a firing mechanism for Gatling-type guns, separate safing and firing cams are located at a firing position coinciding with a notch in an annular safing ring against which cocking levers ride to maintain their firing pins in pre-cocked conditions. To safe the firing mechanism, the safing cam is positioned to bridge the notch and maintain the firing pins pre-cocked as they revolve through the firing position. When the mechanism is armed, a cocking ramp surface of the firing cam is then positioned to cam the cocking levers rearwardly, cocking their firing pins. Immediately thereafter, the cocking levers drop off a firing cam sear corner into the notch now exposed by the safing cam to successively fire off ammunition rounds.

Firing mechanism for revolving battery gun

A gun system is provided which includes a Gatling type gun; a barrel cluster having a torque assist device and coupled to a hydraulic starting subsystem to provide initial acceleration, rotational velocity control, braking and reverse clearing of the gun; and a gun gas drive to provide steady-state energy for rotation of the barrel cluster.

Self powered drive system for a Gatling type gun

This invention has the provision in an automatic gun having a relatively small diameter barrel cluster, which rotates at a first velocity, of a relatively small diameter stationary cam track which controls and drives the gun bolts through their respective fore and aft dwells and adjacent accelerations and decelerations, and an additional relatively small diameter cam track which rotates in the opposite direction at a multiple of said first velocity to control and drive the gun bolts through the cross-overs of the stationary cam track.

Growing community of inventors

Colchester, VT, United States of America

Stephen J Bullis